B

If Seguro Social belongs to all of us, we all have the right and the duty to participate in an effective way in the making of fundamental decisions that affect the system. We cannot be treated like stones, as this government has treated us with its constitutional and tax reforms and as it is disposed to do once again with respect to social security.

We can't lose sight of the fact that the mechanism to assure the survival of our social security system is a subject vested with a political character par excellence, even when the concrete formula for the solution of this problem may be strictly technical. In effect, the will that's required to convert a simple idea into a law that's obligatory for all that live in society is made effective by means of political persuasion, in the broadest sense of the concept, and by way of juridical acts that perfect it. In a monarchy or a dictatorship the effort is minimal as the decision of the king or tyrant is enough to effect this conversion. In the ideal state that Plato visualized, this conversion would depend on an elite class, educated and informed, composed only of philosopher-kings prepared from their infancy to exercise political leadership. For their part, the American and French revolutions of the 18th century gave our Western culture new models of representative democracy, and of participatory democracy that today is practiced in different countries as suitable instruments to guarantee social order and peace. Above all the referendum, as an instrument of participatory democracy, is an appropriate vehicle to decide extraordinary matters in national life, matters that go beyond the daily subjects of politics or of administration.

The decisions that we must now take with respect to the survival of our social security system will affect all of us Panamanians: retirees, pensioners and workers, present and future. According to the figures the authorities give us, under the present system women who are today under 50 years old won't get to enjoy their retirement and men under 55 years will face the same fate. Equally, today's retirees won't receive their pensions within a few years and medical attention and medicines will be things of the past in a short while. The chaos and permanent trauma that this will mean, not only for those directly affected but for the government, for the country and for its economy in general, challenges every effort of the imagination. Thus, we have to accept that we're dealing with a very grave national problem in which everyone has an interest, about which in recent years the measures that should have been taken were not taken.

\It's precisely this characteristic, and because it deals with such and important and sensitive subject for everybody, that during the election campaign a year ago I proposed what I considered, and consider, the less painful and less traumatic road to arrive at a solution that we must face. As always, I have considered that this is not easy.

I proposed the idea then, which I reiterate more zealously now, that the Panamanian people be formally consulted about whether or not they agree with the formula for the technical solution which, without contamination by political colors or banners, the experts judge best. Let me make clear that I'm not talking about consulting a menu of various alternatives because nobody in their right mind would choose something other than the easiest way out, even though that would give less guarantee of the system's security over the long term. The only way to do a consultation with the population in an orderly manner and to obtain genuine results is by way of a referendum that permits all of the insured --- and including the non-insured, if it's considered just to also include them --- to manifest their considered and conscious opinion.

Although it has been mentioned before, it's worth repeating the steps or stages of my proposal:

1. A presidential commission, like that which recommended the creation of the Panama Canal Authority, studies and proposes a set of strictly technical solutions;

2. The Cabinet Council adopts it if it addresses the point and convenes a referendum of a political nature to know the majority opinion of the population;

3. During a period of three months the content of the technical proposal is divulged to all sectors throughout the length and breadth of the country, independently of their favorable or unfavorable disposition;

4. If the referendum is favorable, the Cabinet Council prepares the legislative proposal and sends it to the National Assembly, with the promise to veto whatever deviation from the referendum result; and

5. Upon approval by the National Assembly, with the endorsement of the national referendum result, the law is signed.

So far I've heard six objections to my suggestion: that it would be a referendum not contemplated in our legal system; that I can't propose now what I didn't do during my administration; that the suggestion is demagogic; that it limits the rights of future generations; that it's costly; and that the people are incapable of deciding such a technical issue. None of these six has sufficient foundation to disqualify the idea, as I will summarily explain.

In the first place, if our Political Constitution demands popular consultation by way of a referendum in order to take decisions about the Panama Canal or about reforms to the constitution itself, the characteristic of these modes of consultation is that their result is binding, that is, constitutes without further action a decision with which compliance is obligatory. On the contrary, the consultation I propose does not have a strictly legal and binding character --- it would be a consultation of a political character, which would give the ministerial cabinet the strength of a political authorization, orderly channeled and impartially counted, to then proceed with the bureaucratic and legal steps necessary to convert the idea into a formal law. This would be the disciplined and clear way to obtain the authentic opinion --- favorable or not --- of the population, an objective that could never be obtained by way of partial and disorderly consultations which the present government intends to realize in an aleatory fashion and the final result of which would not be in a form that we could objectively verify. The executive cannot be denied the right to consult the people for their non-binding opinion with respect to any subject, above all if is is so transcendent and is linked to its primordial functions of conserving public order and coordinating the administration's labor, counting on the Cabinet Council in its quality as a consultative body.

In the second place, it's true that I didn't propose a referendum 13 years ago when we attempted to enact reforms to the social security system and instead I preferred to confide in the healthy judgment of the members of the Legislative Assembly of that time, and it seems curious to me that that many of the politicians who now support the necessity of reforming the social security regime opposed the measures proposed with the identical aim 13 years ago in the legislature. I don't consider it a sin, or even a little fault to have been able to arrive, after the experience lived in 1992, at the conclusion that a popular consultation of a political character would be a better method to completely resolve the problem, without the danger of falling for the temptation of controlling the solution with measures that deceive future generations.

In the third place, I don't see how my suggestion can be qualified as a demagogic proposal. The word "demagoguery" is defined as a tyrannical domination of the people or politics based upon flattery or manipulation of the people. Neither domination nor manipulation form the aim or the content of my idea. On the contrary, I advocate that the people be directly consulted and that everyone be able to freely express his or her opinion and feel like part of the final decision. On the strictly personal level, I estimate that whatever solution that's adopted will not place in danger the retirement of those who now enjoy this right, and thus, the referendum can't be considered to be a measure that in some way especially favors me.

There have been formulated other objections of little importance: a fallacious argument that a referendum would constrain the freedom of future generations, although the same could be said about a law which the National Assembly approves without a referendum; and another that says that the referendum would be costly and would delay the solution of an urgent problem, although an efficient organization resolves this objection.

Finally, far from considering --- like the detractors of my suggestion --- that the people are incapable of expressing a valid opinion about a complex problem, I have absolute confidence in people's understanding and in their sound judgment. There's nothing so complex or technical that it can't be summarized and explained in terms understandable to everybody at every level --- true intelligence precisely consists of the ability to distill and transmit the essence of concepts and things.

The government has initiated a publicity campaign about the actuarial and financial problems of the Social Security Fund. This stage can't be properly considered a consultation because it's limited to offering information about the diagnosis. It would be convenient if it would include the details of all the variables and working hypotheses that have been used to support the conclusions about the dimension and urgency of each of the problems analyzed.

Truly crucial will be the next stage which consists of revealing --- finally --- the information about the concrete measures suggested by the government, information that until now has been withheld and guarded as the greatest secret. About this particular, I have every suspicion that the government team has for a good time now identified the measures it's going to impose after all the "consultations." I also suspect that for some time the functionaries and technicians at he Social Security Fund, and their aides, have made their own calculations about the terms and amounts that, according to their estimates, are required to achieve the system's financial stability. I hope that they don't go grabbing, as is the habitual practice of the governing party, demanding more resources than are necessary.

That will be when the true national discussion begins. We all know what the proposals presented by the different sectors in the National Dialogue on Social Security held under the auspices of the United Nations Development Program were, above all with respect to the Program for Disability, Old Age and Death, which is the thorniest part: a direct contribution by the state of some billions of dollars; the inclusion of expense accounts and honoraria for professional services as part of the wage calculation; an increase in the years of contributions from 15 to 25; an increase from 7 to 15 years of the average wage on which to base the amount of the retirement pension; an increase in the retirement age for women because on the average they live to be 87 years old while men live on average to be 84; creation of a defined pillar of benefits and another of individual accounts; reduction of the basic substitution rate to under 60 percent of the wage; increase of contributions by employers and workers; increased profitability of investments; income from assets of the Reverted Areas; elimination of arrearages and evasion, etc.

It's no secret that the measure or measures that will be proposed are part of this inventory. However, the big questions are: Which measures will the government choose? How much will this combination yield? What will be the optimum combination of measures? They are decisions that can't be taken in a clear and unequivocal manner in the absence of a direct consultation with the people by means of a referendum, as I have proposed, based upon an eminently technical opinion, without any stain that puts the reliability of the whole fabric in doubt or detracts from its credibility.

A formal decision, politically endorsed by the majority of the population, would have all of the political and moral force to be adopted as the people's and approved by the Cabinet Council and later by the National Assembly. In this way a legislation vested with the legitimacy given by having received the benefit of approval in a direct popular consultation would be produced. On the other hand, a decision based upon an expedited, aleatory and informal consultation, like the recent tax reform was, will be bereft of the legitimacy of popular support and could fall victim to the opposition of affected sectors that consider that they were not duly consulted or that their opinion was once again not taken into account. We'd be going back to the Plato's ideal state for ancient Greece, under the scheme of a democracy led by the modern version of the elitist class of philosopher-kings, who know everything and for whom popular consultation makes no sense due to the lack of intelligence and incapacity, according to them, of the people to understand such complicated matters. I don't share this judgment.

For these reasons, I think that an exercise in participatory democracy, as a political referendum with a concrete proposal would be, would command respect when confronting a decision that belongs to and affects all of the contributors, retirees and pensioners, and, if desired, to all the nation.

The subject is too serious to be treated lightly. It's a shame that the opportunity to act with a statesman's vision at a time that demands it is being squandered. There's nothing to fear from the popular wisdom.

Financial services at Finansbanken --- http://www.finansbanken.dk/english/index.html
Build a home in Las Cumbres with Villa Concordia --- http://villaconcordia-pma.com/
Make the Executive Hotel your headquarters in Panama City --- http://www.executivehotel-panama.com